


Football for Dummies

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds, Jeid - Fandom, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau - Fandom, Spencer Reid - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Football
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 04:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10154051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	

“I’ll p-pick you up t-tomorrow morning then,” he said as he got up and went back to his seat on the plane. They’d been working together for a couple of years and he’d wanted to ask her out, but he couldn’t; he was too clumsy, too awkward, too afraid of rejection to ask out a woman like that. JJ was beautiful, and funny, kind, and intelligent, exceedingly good at her job. He was good at his job sure, but he was lanky and nerdy and awkward and stuttered whenever a pretty girl was around. But then Gideon gave him a gift, helped him along in a way, by giving him tickets to a football game for a team that JJ loved. Now, all he had to do was memorize a book on football before they went out tomorrow. With an IQ of 187 and the ability to read 20,000 words a minutes, he should be able to read quite a few books on the subject before he picked her up. Once they touched down maybe he’d go get Football For Dummies or something - for a genius, there was a ton he didn’t know, especially about sports.

—–

After touching down the night before, Spencer drove to the bookstore and grabbed three different books on football and how to play, stats on football, anything he could think of to make it seem like he actually knew what he was talking about when it came to sports. It was probably the area he was dumbest in - if he could be considered dumb in any regard. 

When he got to JJ’s apartment, he knocked on the door, wondering if he went overboard by wearing a team jersey. Was it too cheesy? Plus, being barely 150 pounds, he definitely didn’t fill it out too well, but anything else he normally wore probably looked even more out of place. He wanted to blend in as much as he could. “Hi, JJ,” he stuttered as she opened the door, wearing a jersey of her own. Just like his, it was oversized. They matched. She, of course, looked better than he did. “Ready to go?”

As they made their way down the stairs, she linked her arm in his. “Thanks,” she said when he opened the car door. “I can’t wait for the game.”

The entire drive to the stadium was filled with Spencer rambling off any known fact he could about football. He figured he’d start with the really random facts because then he’d have something relevant to talk about during the game, distract JJ from the fact that he had no idea what he was actually talking about. “Did you know that since no one could agree on the realignment of the NFC after the AFL/NFL merger, the five best plans were put in a vase and Pete Rozelle’s secretary selected one at random?” 

“No I didn’t!” she laughed, tucking a wavy tendril of hair behind her ear. “Apparently not everyhing is always so thought out. What other random facts do you have for me?”

This normally didn’t work. Women didn’t want to hear random facts from him. Maybe she didn’t mind because they were friends first; he didn’t know. All that he knew was that JJ wasn’t put off by his ramblings, so he shuffled through his brain for another random fact. “Oh, well this is interesting. CBS paid $4.65 million in 1962 for the first executive rights to broadcast NFL hames. Currently, Fox pays a reported $1.15 billion for its NFC package.”

Random fact after random fact spouted from his mouth as they drove to the stadium, but finally they were there. With his hands in his pockets the walked up to the entrance and Spencer pulled out their tickets. After passing them to one of the employees, JJ took him off guard by grabbing his hand and leading him to their seats. She was holding his hand - she wanted to be holding his hand. He wasn’t used to this. “Here we are,” she said, pointing to some seats in the middle of the stadium. “Should we get food first? I think I want food.”

“Sure,” he laughed. They placed their coats on the seats and went to grab some food, popcorn for her and chips for him; they also decided to share a large soda. When he looked around, he felt out of place, the couples around him looking like they fit together, while he looked like she was completely out of his league, but when he looked down, he realized she had only been looking at him. 

“Thanks for taking me to this, Spence,” she said, leaning her head into his shoulder as they made their way back to their seats. “It was really awesome of you.”

“Who else would I take?” he asked, more a statement than a question. “Thanks for coming with me.”

Five minutes after they sat down, the game started, and despite all the books he’d read the night before, when it was all happening before him, he couldn’t keep track of what was going on. Was that an automatic first down, a backward pass, a counter, a Hail Mary? It just proved Morgan’s point that no matter how much book learning somebody had, some things in life just needed practical, hands-on applications. “Hey Spence,” JJ laughed, turning toward him after her team scored. “You okay? You look confused.”

“No…no,” he said, trying to make an excuse for the confused look on his face. “I’m good. I’m fine.” The game went on, JJ’s team pulling further and further into the lead, while Spencer leaned further and further back in his seat. At one point, his mind wandered off. It was official; he found football boring. The only thing that was keeping him awake was the fact that he was here with JJ. Instead of focusing on the plays, he focused on the lines of her face and silkiness of her hair. Hopefully, she would have a good enough time that she’d consider going out with him again. 

With less than 30 seconds in the final quarter (they were quarters, right), someone on JJ’s team was running toward the end zone, and everyone in the stadium rose off their feet and started screaming bloody murder. “Yes, yes, yes, go, go, go!” JJ screamed. Spencer was the only one sitting down still so he decided to get up; he did want to fit in after all. “Yes, touchdown!”

Just as the player slammed the football into the ground, JJ turned toward Spencer and jumped into his arms. “Woo!!!!” she screamed. “This was awesome.” Spencer still had basically no idea what was going on, but it didn’t matter. JJ was smiling ear-to-ear, the light from her smile reflected in her blue eyes. 

As they made their way out of the stadium among the throngs of people, Spencer became quiet. They’d had a great time. But what if she just had a great time because of the game and had no interest in going out with him again. That would be horrible and might make him even more awkward at work. She didn’t seem to notice his reticence, instead exclaiming about every play that blew her mind, which was apparently most of them; her team had pulled off some amazing plays from what he could tell, which obviously wasn’t much. 

On the way back to her place, she did most of the talking, allowing for Spencer to say small things here and there. After about 15 minutes, they were back at her apartment, and he got out to open the door for her and walk her up to her apartment. “So, ummm…JJ,” he started, “I know you really enjoyed the game, but I hope you enjoyed the date as a whole, if you didn’t that’s okay, I’ll understand, but if you did enjoy it and would want to go out with me again at some point I’d really enjoy it. Again, It’s okay if you didn’t. No hard…”

Before he could ramble on any more, JJ stood tall and pressed her lips against his, parting her lips slowly and breathing into him. “Spence, I’d love to go out again. Maybe we can go to dinner?” She kissed him again before leaning back on her feet and heading inside, but not without a final look back for now.

As she closed the door behind her, Spencer turned away with a tiny smile on his face. He brought his fingers up to his lips, still feeling her pressing against him. She’d said next time. There would be a next time.

Yes.


End file.
